WTF?? Consensual Delsuion is in the top 50 blogs under "living"!

Yes, I am as surprised as you are. Probably even more surprised. Definitely more surprised. When son #1 heard this he remarked "Dad, those other blogs must really suck, but congratulations anyway." Thank you #1 and thank you everyone else for reading.

Don't worry. Define it. Then be happy.

As complexities increase so do anxieties. Focusing on the symptoms, imagined effects or potential ramifications in any given situation just serves to push oneself further into the deep end. And if you can't swim or more precisely can't get yourself to acknowledge that you have to swim, you're going to panic, sink and then unfortunately drown. The point is that in any given situation, it is critical to define the situation as opposed to being overwhelmed by the situation. Then one is free to choose an appropriate response rather than being a slave to reaction.

What did you do today?

My friend Peter O'Grady expressed this so eloquently that I have nothing to add. Well, almost nothing.

"We still have a long way to go when even the documentations of a vast human tragedy are a target. "Never again!" Can't say that enough."

Never again. To anyone.  At anytime.  Anywhere. They are our responsibility as we are theirs.

Maybe we should have our kids ask us at dinner what we did to stop genocide today? Or end hunger. Or illiteracy. Or poverty. Or oppression. Or slavery. Or pollution and on and on........

Spin things around and look at them anew.

If you want to break free, or just breakthrough, start challenging your assumptions. Just because you have been told something is one way over and over again, doesn't mean that it actually is that way. For example, at one point, learned consensus held that the world was flat, draining the blood of the ill would cure them or that gravity was the attractive force between objects with mass*.  Each of these "facts" were held as truths when supported by the rules and assumptions of their respective time periods. And each of these "facts" were undone by unconventional thinkers who dared to challenge the most basic of assumptions and then chose to view events from a new vantage point which led to their breakthroughs.

*huh? It is now considered to be a measurable effect created by the displacement of space-time by an object of a particular mass -but who knows how long that will actually be true!

It is what it is.

Have you ever been so wrapped up in how you think the world "sees" someone close to you that you were embarrassed by them? Hold that feeling and take the emphasis off of you. Now shift the emphasis on them. How do you think they felt or would have felt, had they perceived that you were embarrassed? Would they be hurt? Would they feel betrayed. Now you really have something to be embarrassed about.

Advice to gradutes

To all those newly minted BAs, BSs, MBAs JDs etc, I can't offer you a single word like "plastics" but I can offer you two words: The Future.  Don't pick a job or a career based upon present conditions and certainly don't pick one based upon past conditions. Stretch your mind, forget about the rigid realities established by your education and instead try focus on what you think will be important to future you in 5, 10, 20 or even 40 years.  Start there and adapt freely as you advance. This is an opportunity, make the most of it. If this helps, remember to have future you pass it on when appropriate.